Three sections of the Patriot Act — the so-called ‘library provision’
that allows a secret court to issue orders for anything deemed
relevant to an investigation; the roving wiretap provision that
allows the government to get a wiretap order that doesn’t specify the
person or place to be tapped; and the ‘lone wolf’ provision, which
permits intelligence wiretapping of people not connected to a
terrorist group — are scheduled to expire on February 28. It’s
February 7.

***

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) recently suggested that Congress doesn’t have enough time to consider reforms this year. That was the excuse for last year’s Patriot Act reauthorization.
Members of Congress had suggested that they would use 2010 to really
examine the effects of the USA Patriot Act and return to it in early
2011 ready to make much-needed changes.

And where are we now?
Well, Congress is betting that while they weren’t thinking about the
Patriot Act in the past year, you weren’t either. Late in the day on
Friday, we learned that the House will vote tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 8,
on a bill to extend the expiring Patriot Act provisions until
December 8, 2011. They want to sneak this reauthorization through,
and they’re hoping that you don’t notice.

Well, once
again, we’re asking you to tell Congress that you are watching, that
you don’t buy their fear-mongering or their scare tactics, and that
you want real Patriot Act reform. We’ve put a new action alert up urging Congress not to rubber stamp the Patriot Act once again, and we urge you to take action. For almost 10 years, the Patriot Act has given the government too much leeway to pry into our private lives.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have documented (see this, this and this), the Patriot Act would not have prevented 9/11, and has led to numerous crimes by the FBI and other agencies.

Call Congress
NOW and tell them to vote down renewing the Patriot Act. Word from D.C.
is that the Patriot Act will be renewed unless there is strong public
outcry today.

Remember, the Patriot Act was apparently written before 9/11, and the government’s spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here. And see this) . These assault on the Constitution did not keep us safe.

Indeed – as I’ve previously noted – the “national security” apparatus has been hijacked to serve the needs of big business, and is not really protecting us.